Naeem Mohaiemen uses film, installation, and essays to research South Asia's postcolonial markers. His projects on the 1970s revolutionary left explores the role of misrecognition within global solidarity.
Education
Mohaiemen graduated from Oberlin College in 1993 with a BA in Economics and Concentration in History. He was a member of Oberlin College's Board of Trustees. He received an MA in Anthropology in 2015 and a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2019 from Columbia University.
Two Meetings and a Funeral, premiered at Documenta 14 in Kassel. British premiere at Tate Britain as part of 2018 Turner Prize shortlist. American premiere at Art Institute of Chicago.
Part 4: Abu Ammar is Coming – examines a photograph of five men who were supposedly Bangladeshi and affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the early 1980s, questioning how contemporary relations between the involved nations might be reshaped.
Chapters from Mohaiemen's project on the 1970s revolutionary left have exhibited at the Mahmoud Darwish Museum, , Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Bengal Foundation Shilpalay, Chobi Mela, Documenta 14, Kiran Nadar Museum, Museum of Modern Art New York, British Museum, Tate Britain, New Museum, Frieze Art Fair, MUAC Mexico City, the 56th Venice Biennial, and the Lahore, Sharjah, Marrakech, and Eva Biennials. Mohaiemen co-founded Visible Collective, a collective of New York-based artists and lawyers investigating post-9/11 security panic. Visible's work exhibited internationally, including the 2006 Whitney Biennial of American Art and L'institut des cultures d'Islam in Paris. His solo projects have looked at military coups, surveillance, Indian partition, architectural nationalism, and dueling leftist and Islamist politics.
Writing
Mohaiemen is author of Prisoners of Shothik Itihash. He edited the anthologies Between Ashes and Hope: Chittagong Hill Tracts in the blind spot of Bangladesh nationalism, Collectives in atomised time, and System Error: War is a force that gives us meaning. He was the primary critic of Dead Reckoning, a book by Sarmila Bose on the 1971 war of Bangladesh. His response was cited by the BBC and published in Economic & Political Weekly. Bose responded to his remarks in the same periodical, followed by a rebuttal from Mohaiemen. Essays on Bangladesh history include"Muktijuddho: Polyphony of the Ocean", "Accelerated Media and the 1971 Genocide", "Musee Guimet as Proxy Fight", "Mujtaba Ali: Amphibian Man", "Mujib Coat", and "Everybody wants to be Singapore". He wrote the chapter on religious and ethnic minorities in the Ain o Salish Kendro Annual Report for Bangladesh. Essays on diaspora include "Known unknowns of the class war","The skin I'm in: Afro-Bengali solidarity and possible futures", "Beirut, Silver Porsche Illusion", "Why Mahmud Can’t Be a Pilot", and "No Exit". Essays on culture include "Islamic Roots of HipHop", "Adman blues become artist liberation" and "At the coed dance ".
